6.3 Discussion of the findings
6.3.4 Anger and girls
Because they were probly [sic] in a bullying situation when they were younger. They were teased so they do it to others to show their pain (11 yrs).
The findings in the current study are also consistent with Duncan and Owen-Smith‟s (2006) contention that indirect aggression is directly related to the degree of anxiety about status in a friendship, which is different for boys and girls. Simmons (2002) and Eder and Enke (1991) discuss „alliance building‟ as one of the aims of relational aggression. It creates an „us‟ versus „them‟ mentality, reinforcing traditional gender norms and allows group aggression whilst each girl maintains her façade of being a
„nice‟ girl. Alliance building could also serve to reduce the anxiety that girls feel over the possible “loss” of friendship or status resulting from their aggression, since the group is united against the victim, as Duncan and Owen-Smith (2006) hypothesize:
“…if girls‟ friendship networks are tighter, and/or their status depends more heavily upon friendships than does boys, then girls may have greater motivation than boys to engage in indirect aggression because direct aggression is so potentially damaging to these very important relationships” (p. 500).
Talking with someone should be how people vent anger (15 yrs)
Generally, however, these comments were tempered with the warning (referred to in the literature by Bowie, 2007) that despite being allowed to express their anger, girls should still be „nice‟ about it, and above all else should manage their aggression and not hurt other girls. These participants suggested that an angry girl should:
Go some place quiet to avoid hurting someone (11 yrs)
Try to be a bit nice even if they are angry because it‟s wrong to take your anger out on people…girls shouldn‟t go and hit and shout at people (14 year old)
I think they should express their anger but try not to hurt other people when doing this. This shows that…they really are nice girls…No one has the right to hurt anyone no matter what mood their [sic] in (15 yrs)
They should not bottle their feelings up but they shouldn‟t have an anger outburst like a savage (16 yrs).
Consistent with the available literature (Gilligan, 1982; Simmons, 2002; Underwood, et al., 2004), the majority of girls in the sample (46.7%) cited the fact that girls
„should not hurt others‟ as the reason why they should keep their anger hidden.
However, a greater „fear of negative consequences‟ as the reason for hiding aggression was significantly related to being younger in age:
She does not want to get into trouble…if you show your anger it causes trouble and some people could get suspended (10 yrs);
In contrast, a greater belief that girls are entitled to be authentic (as long as they do not cause harm) was significantly related to being older in age. This latter result is contrary to the work of Brown and Gilligan (1982), and may suggest that South African girls are in fact being socialized to value their own voices to a greater degree than the girls in the 1982 study. Evidence of such is shown in the participants‟ words:
I think they should be honest with themselves! If you‟re angry – be angry! (15 yrs) Let everyone know why they are angry, so people know not to do it again (16 yrs) I think that a person has the right to express her feelings (17 yrs)
They should express how they feel so that they do not get walked over (18 yrs)
The idea of being „mean‟, says Simmons (2002): “…undermines the core of the feminine identity: to be nice, to nurture, to say yes” (p. 150). Yet, she warns, we need to break this cycle of denying the existence of meanness amongst girls:
By washing our hands of our own capacity to injure, we perpetuate the stereotype that females are nonaggressive. We become accomplices in the culture‟s repression of assertive women and girls by making aggression
pathological, private, and hidden. We also help silence the public discussion of the ways and reasons girls are mean to each other…because to put it out there would mean we have to admit to ourselves that inside we are all mean, that inside we are all aggressive (p. 151).
Despite the trend discussed above, many girls of all ages still believed that anger in girls is wrong:
Stop being angry and be good…calm yourself down, because you could get too angry and hurt someone…be nice and kind…she musn‟t hurt others…rather walk away (7 yrs).
They should not show they are angry, rather cover it up and pretend everything is fine…normally nice girls do not show they are upset…they hide their feelings (18 yrs)
Simmons (2002) argues that that girls do not feel anger differently to boys, but the way they express it is different, according to socialization rules of how girls and boys are supposed to behave, saying: “Aggression may be biological but the face of anger is learned” (p. 11). As a result, girls tend to repress anger and avoid confrontation because they fear direct conflict – instead they use indirect acts to express themselves, often inflicting severe pain on their so-called „friends‟. Our culture socializes girls to be caretakers; that is, their main value lies in their relationships with others, being loving, caring, „sweet‟ and „nice‟. Such a role is completely incompatible with aggression. It is also taught that nice girls have lots of good friends, with „perfect‟
relationships. According to the girls in this study, friends:
Should not bring their problems into other people‟s lives and situations because then they would not be loyal and nice…true friendship never hurts (15 yrs)
They are taught to value „niceness‟ and peacefulness over honesty and conflict. An angry girl should be:
Nice, because it is always good to smile and be kind (11 yrs) Calm – because they are nice people (15 yrs).
Therefore „good girls‟ should not experience anger, because this endangers
relationships and impacts negatively on their ability to be „nice‟ (Simmons, 2002).
Teachers and parents of young children repeatedly remind girls to speak softly, to be quiet or be “nicer”, whereas they either encourage or dismiss the physical aggression in boys. Peers continue this socialization process, endorsing „tough‟ boys and „nice‟
girls according to the values in their social groups, as pointed out by the respondents:
They shouldn‟t throw tantrums or shout otherwise their reputation will die (13 yrs) Nice girls don‟t show the anger, I think… as they uphold their image (15 yrs)
They should not show it because people are watching and you are the example setter (17 yrs)
In short, our culture sees aggression in girls as unfeminine, and punishes it with social rejection (ibid):
They should hide their anger so that other people can‟t see it and use it against her (15 yrs)
In the society of today, confidence and competition are critical characteristics for success, yet they break the rules of femininity. Such conflict results in a silent battle.
As they do with aggression, girls learn to suppress open feelings of jealousy and competition, which then become transformed into different, more „acceptable‟
behaviours, according to Simmons (2002). She says:
When we can agree that nice girls get really angry, and that good girls are sometime quite bad, we will have plowed the social desert between “nice” and
“bitch”. When we have built a positive vocabulary for girls to tell each other their truths, more girls will raise their voices. They will pose and answer their own questions and solve their own mysteries of relationship (p. 270).